At the time, Pebble said devices would continue to work as normal with no immediate changes to the Pebble user experience, but it also admitted Pebble functionality or service quality "may be reduced in the future". We haven't heard much from the company since, but now, it has released an update that helps clarify what's going on and whether your Pebble watch will be still useful in the near future.

The Pebble app update essentially removes the Pebble smartwatches' dependency on cloud services. That means, when Pebble’s servers do ultimately shut down, Pebble owners will still be able to side-load apps and new firmware to their smartwatches. Pebble devices will keep working, even if the online servers are not accessible, Pebble explained in its changelog for the updated Pebble for iOS app.

Despite this fix, Pebble owners may still have a few questions about whether device features will continue working going forward. Dictation, messaging, and weather all hook into Pebble's cloud services, so it's unclear if users can still access to those features. The companion app update did mention that the ability to contact customer support and request new features has been removed, though.

It seems for now that Pebble owners will only get access to the basic features of their watches, while Fitbit gobbles up the rest of Pebble.